let me just start by putting this on the table so we can all see it:

the way literature and creative writing are taught in schools is completely and totally wrong.

it is. it’s fucked up. it’s backwards. now, to be fair, i don’t have an alternate suggestion for schools. i’m not school guy. but i do have an alternate suggestion for writers, and it begins with looking back on everything you learned in those classes, and throwing it the fuck out.

remember how teachers used to read a passage from a book and then ask you, “what do you think [author] was trying to say here?” remember how “exactly what the words say” was not an acceptable answer? yeah, that shit right there. toss it.

remember how they talked about ‘theme’? and there was a list of themes like ‘man versus nature’ and ‘man versus himself’? and how you had to ‘figure out’ what the theme of a piece was? remember how there was one right answer?

you know how they’d ask “why did [author] write it this way?” and for some reason, “because it’s awesome” was never an acceptable answer. there was always a hidden reason. a boring, preachy reason.

remember how everything was full of allegory and everything was a metaphor for something and the author was always making some huge, important point about society or religion? remember how they sucked all the life out of good books one right after another until you felt like only self-important douchebags would enjoy them? or like no one could possibly enjoy them at all, and people must only pretend to like them in order to look intellectual to other self-important douchebags?

god, and creative writing. remember how you had to imitate styles? remember how you had to critique, and submit for critique, stories so rushed and lifeless that all you could talk about without starting a blood feud was some vague bullshit about ‘imagery’?

man, it felt so wrong at the time, but we all accepted that the teacher knew better than we did. we still kind of accept that deep down, don’t we? as if being able to sound academic while talking a piece of writing to death is the key to being a Real Writer.

okay, now remember a different thing.

remember the last time you talked about your favorite fandom with someone else who loves it as much as you do. remember how excitedly you analyzed characters and untangled plot, speculated on future directions, wondered whether the author was fucking with you or whether that crazy thing you noticed is canon for real.

remember how fun that was?

the difference between the fun experience and the soul-sucking one is that you were analyzing the story, and your high school english teacher was analyzing analysis. there’s no reason you couldn’t have the same crazy awesome discussions about shakespeare or the iliad that you do about homestuck or sherlock. in fact, i have done that, and it fucking rocked. i know a guy who’s writing a chapter-by-chapter analysis of moby dick, and it’s hilarious. i totally ship ishmael/queequeg. holy shit, ahab is a fucking lunatic.

when you write, do you obsess on style and word choice? do you ask yourself ‘but what am i trying to say?’ do you write as if you’ll have to give an accounting of your secret motives to a roomful of students someday? think about the standards you aspire to, the things you imagine Real Writers are doing. the apocryphal stories of the famous dead guy who spent all day taking out a comma and putting it in. where’d that come from? that’s right, creative writing class.

i’m saying throw all that out. the all-day-on-a-comma guy, if anyone even actually did that, was clearly either depressed or stuck. that’s not an example of exquisite craftsmanship, it’s an example of what they blew a wasted day on before the internet was invented. if you find yourself dithering over a single comma, flip a coin. or delete the whole sentence and write a different one from scratch. or just go get a sandwich.

here is how you actually Be A Real Writer:

TELL. THE FUCKING. STORY.

that’s it. that’s the whole thing. right there. sure, there’s craft, lots of it, you can always get better, but what you’re getting better at is TELLING THE FUCKING STORY. and if you look at all those books they made you analyze to death, if you strip away the layers of caked-on bullshit that generations of schoolteachers have crusted on them and just read the damn things, guess what? the reason we’re still reading them now? AWESOME FUCKING STORY.

so what i’m saying here is, back when teachers wouldn’t accept ‘because it’s awesome’ for an answer… they were wrong.

‘because it’s awesome’ is the BEST reason to write something.